1703–1791

Anglican clergyman

Upbringing and Education.

John Wesley was born the son of an Anglican priest who had once been a member of a non-conforming sect. The fifteenth of nineteen children, his family's household was heroically run on slim resources by his mother, Susanna, a figure that John was later to immortalize as a paragon of Christian piety. In 1720, he entered Oxford and when he completed his degree several years later, he decided to pursue a career in the church. After assisting his father in his parish, he eventually was ordained in 1728. In these years he also had a fellowship at Oxford, and in 1729, he returned there to fulfill the requirements of that grant. John, his brother Charles, and several others formed the "Holy Club," a group that soon was mocked by other members of the Oxford community as "Methodists." John soon assumed the lead in the...